Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1992
Abstract
Pipe, Bible, and Peyote among the Oglala Sioux is a republication of a 1980 manuscript published in the Stockholm Studies in Comparative Religion. Steinmetz, a Jesuit priest, spent twenty years (1961-1981) on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, where he served as clergyman and participated, observed, and reflected on the unique constellation of modem Lakota religion. Steinmetz outlines the complexity of different religious identities among the Sioux, to include: the traditional "pure" non-acculturative beliefs and its practitioners, reflected in the American Indian Movement's political emphasis on a return to indigenous practices; "Ecumenist I," designating Lakota Christians who practice both the traditional and Christian religions, but separately; "Ecumenist II," which includes Lakota Christians "who see the Christian religion as fulfillment of the Lakota reli gion" (p. 6); Native American Church or peyotists (both Cross Fire and Half Moon fireplaces); and the Body of Christ Independent Church, a Pentecostal-type fundamentalist faith, also syncretic.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 12:1 (Winter 1992). Copyright © 1992 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln.